This is going to be such a bad idea if Lev turns out to be Ashersexual! But he has spent three days being mind controlled so his ability to resist temptation is somewhat lacking.

He compromises with himself by not saying "you should kiss my forehead" and instead gazing up at Martin adoringly and attempting to transmit this idea through telepathy. With his mouth, he says, "I wonder what would happen if you tried to resign for me."

“I can try that, I guess?”

Martin is not, it turns out, able to resign for Lev. 

Well, then. 

Lev spends tonight taking notes on his experiences of being mind controlled in print and electronically, writing a will (which says that his executors are Asher's parents and, eh, why not, Martin can inherit his five-hundred-pound bank account), and checking that the NHS is aware that his next of kin is Asher's parents and not his parents. Martin doesn't stick around for Extremely Depressing Bureaucracy, which is pretty reasonable, so afterward Lev pulls a blanket onto himself and hugs his pillow and tries, with a distinct lack of success, not to think about how likely it is that he is not going to make his thirtieth birthday. 

He feels more watched than is generally considered normal!

It goes away late that night but reappears when Lev starts heading to work the next morning. 

He goes back to work and glares at anyone who feels like asking where he's gone. 

He starts digitizing statements. It's boring, menial work, and he needs something he can do where he doesn't have to think. 

This goes on for a while before he finds another non-digitizable statement!

It was given by a man named Antonio Blake, regarding his dreams about Gertrude Robinson, previous Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, one day before she died.

.................christ. This day is getting worse and worse.

He keeps reading. Not knowing is going to be worse than knowing.

The man claims that he has been having strange dreams for approximately a decade, of dark tendrils criss-crossing the streets of London, wrapping around the ghostly figures of people. One day he visited a previous workplace of his in the dream, to see his old coworker hanged by one of those tendrils; on researching him, he discovered that the man had indeed hanged himself. Despite the content of the dreams, he never awoke from them feeling like he had a nightmare; he felt invigorated rather than anxious. He began doing research into the supernatural and got a job selling crystals at a magic shop, but could not find anything similar to his experience. Eventually, he saw his father in the dreams, with a tendril through his chest; Antonio immediately booked him a doctor's appointment and otherwise worried over him, but despite all efforts, his father died of a heart attack just over a week later.

He went to sleep one night in 2015 to discover that his dreamscape had changed: the tendrils had grown massively, covering almost everything and pulsing red. At the center of them was the Magnus Institute, which seemed to glow; as he moved further and further towards the center of the tendrils and the light, he was led into the Archive, and specifically to Gertrude Robinson, previous Head Archivist. He decided to leave a statement when he woke up, as a warning to her, trying to prevent her fate or at least give her time to prepare.

Looking into the statement proves impossible: all the contact details "Antonio Blake" gave return error messages, and there seems to be no record of any Antonio Blake matching his description, making it likely that his name was similarly false.

Lev has had entirely too much freaky shit happen to him to be freaked out by this. 

His first thought is: great! maybe someone will manage to warn him before he dies so he can have a chance to fuck Martin if he hasn't gotten around to it yet.

His second thought is: invigorated and not anxious is exactly like what happened to him when he read statements; plausible this man is also being talked to by the Watchful Thing just like Lev. Lev isn't getting any visions of people's deaths though, which is probably all for the better. Also the Magnus Institute is magic which, yeah, he knows. 

His third thought is: did this guy ever go on vacation? Is London haunted by dark tendrils or is everyone haunted?

His fourth thought is: oh fuck did the Magnus Institute doom all of London. 

His fifth thought is: or they're protecting it from something. 

If “Antonio Blake” ever went on vacation, it’s not in the statement. He was sleeping on a friend’s couch after having a nervous breakdown when he first started having them, and he didn’t have the dreams every night—two or three a week—so it’s possible he never took a long enough vacation to find out. Or maybe it slipped his mind, or maybe he’s leaving the information out on purpose. Usually they use the contact information to ask follow-up questions like that, but, well. 

Yeah, okay. 

He adds "Antonio Blake" to the list of names that, if they show up in a statement, Research should forward to him right away. He calls his GP to make an appointment to get a new birth-control implant. He spends the rest of the afternoon researching onboarding procedures for normal jobs and then outlining what they'll need:

1. Sexual harassment policy
2. Confidentiality policy
3. Research ethics
4. Plagiarism
5. Explanation that magic is real
6. Introduction to library science/archiving
7. Introduction to qualitative interviewing technique
8. Non-digitizable statements

He types out "9. Nonconsensual tenure" and then deletes it.

He tries not to feel like too much of a hypocrite about the sexual harassment policy. He tries not to feel like a bad person about not even typing out "10. Everything I know about magic."

He goes home. He adds "psychics" to the monster manual, with a summary of known information. He creates a section for The Magnus Archives and lists out what he knows.  

If he'd managed to quit, he could be going to sleep being held by Martin now instead of cuddling a pillow.

A few days pass without non-digitizable statements.

Then, a woman knocks on the door of the Archives. "Hello? Research sent me. They, uh, tried to put my statement details in the computer and failed, and apparently when that happens they're supposed to send me to you? --Sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm Naomi."

(A few days pass and Lev barely sleeps at night. He has some of Asher's old modafinil he never bothered to throw out. It's okay.) 

"Hello!" Lev says. "Yes, I take them down in this notebook, type them up, and file them in the non-digitizable statements folder. I have no idea why that happens."

"Weird. You guys need to get some better computers. So, I guess I just... tell you my story now? Or something like that?"

"Yes," Lev says, slipping into interviewer mode. "Do you need something to help you get comfortable? A cup of tea, maybe?"

"Tea would be nice, sure."

He brings her a cup of tea and adopts a neutral, pleasant expression. 

"We know that a lot of our statement-givers have been through, well, horrifying experiences. So I want you to know that you can stop at any time, or take a break whenever you want, or even stop and come back tomorrow. We have a break room with tea and such if you need it."

"...Thank you, that's... really nice of you. I think I'm okay right now, though."

"All right. I'm going to be taking notes with a pencil and paper. Do you want to start by telling me a little about yourself? Your name, age, occupation, that sort of thing?"

"I'm Naomi Herne. I'm a lab assistant, mostly--graduated with a first in chemistry. That's--how I met Evan, actually.

Sorry, I--haven't even told you who Evan is yet--

He was my fiancé? Evan Lukas. And all the... weird stuff, it happened right after his funeral."

She pauses, fidgets.

"To be honest I’m not even sure I should be here. What happened was weird and, alright, I can’t think of a rational explanation for it, but I was distraught. I still am. I should go. I probably just imagined the whole thing. He’s gone and that’s all there is to it and probably I should just accept that. The last paranormal investigator I hired didn't even believe me, and I was paying him."

"It's all right," he says. "It's helpful for us if you tell us exactly what you experienced, whether it winds up being paranormal or not. Even if it turns out it's just a trick of your brain"-- which it is not-- "it can help us understand what kinds of tricks people's brains play on them, which means we can identify other non-paranormal statements more quickly."

"Alright. That makes sense.

I’ve... never really been the social type. I’ve always been more comfortable alone, you know? I wasn’t bullied in school, or anything like that. It just never really bothered me. I got lonely sometimes, but for the most part, I knew my own company and was comfortable with it. I didn’t need other people and they certainly didn’t need me.

Anyway, the point is that when I graduated three years ago, I left Leeds with no real friends to speak of. And that was fine by me. I was working as a a science technician, but I was close enough to London that I could apply for the various lab jobs that I actually wanted. It was interviewing for one of these where I met Evan.

He was going for the same position as I was - lab assistant in one of the UCL Biochemistry departments. He got the job, in the end, but I didn’t care. He was so unlike anyone I’d ever met before. He started talking to me before the interview, and I amazed myself by actually talking back. When he asked me questions, I didn’t feel uneasy or worried about my answers, I just found myself telling this stranger all about myself, without any self-consciousness at all. When he was called in for his interview, I actually felt a pang of loss like nothing I’d known before. All for a stranger who I’d met barely ten minutes ago.

When I came out of the building after my own, somewhat disastrous, interview and saw him standing there waiting for me… I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than in that moment.

We started dating, and then living together. I’d had two boyfriends in the past--short-lived relationships. They said it was because I never felt like I actually wanted them around, and in hindsight it was kind of true. With Evan, it was different. It felt natural.

He had friends, as well, plenty of friends, how could he not? And he would take me out to meet them when I wanted to, and when I didn’t, he let me be. After a year with him, I actually had what could perhaps be called a social life and, more than that, I didn’t hate it. I always used to roll my eyes at people who said that their loved ones ‘completed them’, but I honestly can’t think of any other way to describe how it felt to be with Evan. I proposed to him after only two years, and he said yes.

I’ll skip over the bit where he dies. It’s only been a year, and I don’t want to spend an hour crying, even if you do say I can come back whenever. Congenital, they said. Some problem with his heart. Always been there, but never diagnosed. No warning. One in a million chance. Blah. Blah. Blah. He was gone. Just gone. And I was alone again.

There was no one I could talk to about it. All my friends had been his friends. I know, I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded, they would have said they were my friends too, but... It felt more comfortable, more familiar, to be alone.

I don’t remember the week between his death and the funeral. I’m sure it must have happened, but I don’t have any memory of it at all. After leaving the hospital, the next thing that is properly clear in my mind is walking into that big, austere house. I don’t remember where it was, somewhere in Kent, I think, and I must have been given the address by someone in Evan’s family who had organised the funeral.

It was strange. Evan never really talked about his family. He said he wasn’t on good terms with them because they were very religious, and he never had been. I’d never met or visited them, or even been told their names, as far as I remember. But they must have known me enough to invite me.

The house was very large, and very old. It had a high gate separating it from the main road, which has the name “Moorland House” carved into the stone of the gatepost. Evan had once told me that his family had a lot of money, and looking at this place I realized why the funeral was being held there. You remember that storm that hit at the end of last March? Well, I hardly noticed it. Thinking back, I really shouldn’t have been driving at all, but at the time, it barely registered. 

I don’t know what I expected from Evan’s father. I knew he couldn’t be anything like the easy, charming man I’d fallen in love with, but the hard-faced stranger that confronted me on the doorstep still came as a shock. It was like looking at Evan, but as if age had drained all the joy and affection from him. I started to introduce myself, but he just shook his head and pointed inside, to a door down the corridor behind him, and spoke the only words he ever said to me. He said, “My son is in there. He is dead.” And then he turned and walked away, leaving me shaken, with no option but to follow him inside.

The house was full of people I didn’t know. None of the lovely, welcoming faces I’d come to know from Evan’s friends could be seen among the dour figures of his family. Each wore the same hard expression as his father, and I might have been imagining it, but I could have sworn that when they looked at me, their eyes were full of something dark. Anger, maybe? Blame? God knows I felt guilty enough about his death, though I have no idea why. None of them spoke to me or to each other, and the house was so quiet and still that at times it seemed like I could hardly breathe under the weight of the silence.

Finally, I came to the room where he was laid out. Evan, the man I was going to marry, was lying there in a shining oak casket that seemed too big for him, somehow. The coffin was open, and I could see him, dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit. I realized I had never seen him wear a suit before. Like everything else in his death, it seemed utterly alien to the life that had he had created for himself.

I remember going to my father's funeral, when I was five. My father had looked serene, peaceful, like he had calmly accepted the reality of his passing. There was none of that on Evan’s face. In death he seemed to have that same hardness and reproach that I saw on every one of the silent family that claimed him for their own.

I don’t know how long I stood there. It felt like seconds, but when I turned around I almost shrieked to see dozens of black-clad figures stood there, staring at me. The rest of the Lukas family were standing, waiting without a word, as though I was between them and their prey. Which I suppose, in some ways, I was. Finally, an old man walked forward. He said, “It’s time for you to leave. The burial is a family affair. I’m sure you want to be alone.”

I tried to reply but the words stuck in my throat. I realized the old man was right. I did want to leave, to be alone. I didn’t care where I went, but I had to go, to get away from that awful place with its strange quiet watchers. I ran past them and out into the storm. Inside my car, I just turned on the engine and began to drive. I didn’t know where I was going, and could barely see a thing through my tears and the driving rain, but it didn’t matter. Just as long as I kept going, as long as I didn’t have to stop and think about what had just happened. Looking back, the only thing that surprises me about the crash is that it wasn’t bad enough to kill me.

When I became aware of myself again, I realized I was in the middle of a field, quite a distance from the road. Luckily I hadn’t hit anything or flipped over, but smoke billowed from the engine, and it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere. It was five hours after the funeral. Had I been driving for hours, or had I spent even longer with Evan’s body than I thought? I hadn’t hit anything, so I couldn’t have been knocked unconscious. Had I just been sitting there in my smoking car all that time?

It didn't matter. I needed help. I tried to call the emergency services but my phone just said NO SERVICE. I started walking. I was going to use my phone GPS, but then I realized that the rain was too harsh and my phone wasn't working. I didn’t have a watch, so without my phone I have no idea how long I walked. I was very cold and utterly alone. 

Eventually, the rain stopped, and a fog gathered. I kept walking, though, as the clinging mist made me feel somehow even colder. The fog seemed to follow me as went and seemed to swirl around with a strange, deliberate motion. You’ll probably think me an idiot, but it felt almost malicious. There was no presence to it, though, it wasn’t as though another person was there, it was… It made me feel utterly forsaken.

I don’t know exactly when the hard tarmac of the road became dirt and grass, but I realized after a few minutes that I had strayed off the path. I tried to backtrack, but it was gone. All that remained was the fog. So I kept moving forward.

I realized afterwards that the night should have been far too dark to see the fog. There were no lights there to show it, and the moon had been shrouded in storm clouds all night, but I could see clearly. As I walked I saw more shapes nearby. Dark slabs of stone, sticking out of the ground, leaning and broken. Gravestones, spreading out in all directions. 

I kept moving until I reached the center of what I can only assume was a small cemetery, and there I found a chapel. The top of its steeple was lost in the gloom and the windows were dark. I started to feel relief, as though I might have found some sign of life at last, but wrapped around the handles of the entrance was a sturdy iron chain. I would find no sanctuary here.

I started to shout, to scream for help, but the sound seemed muffled and disappeared almost as soon as it left my throat. It was useless. No one heard me.

Then I started to look around the ground for the heaviest rock I could find. I was going to get inside that church, even if I had to break a window to do it. Anything to get out of the fog.

I noticed that one of the graves had been slightly broken by age, and a small chunk of it could be seen on the ground. It had an engraving of a cross on it, and the weighty lump of stone now lay embedded in the graveyard soil. I bent down to lift it, but as I did so I saw something that froze me in place. The grave was open. And it was empty.

It wasn’t dug up, exactly. The hole was neat, square and deep, as though ready for a burial. At the bottom there was a coffin. It was open, and there was nothing inside. I backed away, and almost fell into another open grave behind me. I started to look around the cemetery with increasing panic. Every grave was open and they were all empty. Even here among the dead, I was alone.

As I stared, the fog began to weigh me down. It coiled about me, its formless damp clung to me and began to drag pull me gently, slowly, towards the waiting pit. I tried to back away, but the ground was slick with dew and I fell. My fingers dug into the soft cemetery dirt as I looked around desperately for anything I could use to save myself, and my hand closed upon that heavy piece of headstone. It took all my self-control to keep a grip on that anchor, as I slowly dragged myself away from the edge of my lonely grave. Flowing around me, the very air itself willed me inside, but I struggled to my feet. I realized with a start that the door to the chapel was open, the chain discarded. I ran to it as quickly as I could, crying out for help, but when I reached the threshold I stopped, and could only stare in horror. Through that door, where the inside of the chapel should be, was a field. It was bathed in sickly moonlight, and the fog rolled close to the ground. It seemed to stretch for miles, and I knew that I could wander there for years, and never meet another. I turned away from that door, but as I looked behind me I could have wept - beyond the graveyard’s edge lay that same field. Stretching off into the distance.

I had to make a choice, so I ran into the graveyard. The fog seemed to be getting thicker, and moving through it was getting harder. It was like I was running against the wind, except the air was completely still.

And then, as I found myself in the middle of that open, desolate field, I heard something. It was the strangest thing, but as I tried to run I could have sworn I heard Evan’s voice call to me. He said, “Turn left”. That’s it. That’s all he said. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s what he told me to do. And I did it. I turned sharply to the left and kept on running. And then… nothing. Just a second of headlights and then... nothing, until I woke up in the hospital."

UM WHAT